The Fat Angel Sings

An emotional number from the singer’s ‘Pleasure Boy’ album. The first lines of “Claremont” suggest that Hannah Cohen has reached an emotional breaking point: I’m not gonna let you take this away from me / I’ve let you break almost everything. The track contains little besides softly-strummed guitar and Hannah Cohen’s quavery-but-resilient voice. Why won’t you just love me? she wonders, her tone beginning to wear—she’s almost past the point of caring.
The video for the song, directed by Jay Anania , expertly mirrors the elegant simplicity of the tune. Cohen sits alone at a half-cracked window with her guitar, and the camera spends a lot of time zoomed in close on her face. There’s a claustrophobic feel—you’re almost too close—that enforces the intense intimacy of the song. But there’s also a feeling of unknowability: despite the scrutiny of the lens, the singer’s face is half in shadow.
Cohen met Anania by accident. “A year and a half ago, my best friend convinced me to meet up with Jay about a strange (and very cool) experimental film he was planning to shoot, I politely agreed to meet him, but fully expected not to be interested because I’ve never acted before. That wasn’t an option. Jay’s excitement and creativity is infectious and before I knew it, my hair was eight inches shorter, platinum blonde and we were shooting scenes. When it came time to shoot my own videos for this album, the first person I thought of was Jay. He’s just the kind of director that you trust implicitly will ‘get it.’ Watch the video above, and catch Hannah Cohen on tour in June with none other than Paul Weller, founder of the Jam and the Style Council.